Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I agree there needs to be a balance between all those things. I might be an unusual voice in saying that, sometimes in this country, the perfect becomes the enemy of the good in all these aspects. We have to realise that we need to be practical and have common sense to get projects moving.

The other issue the Minister did not mention is internal deficiencies in the whole process. One of those internal deficiencies, for example, is the 22,000 homes that are currently stuck in the planning process in An Bord Pleanála. Extra staff have been assigned to that body, which is good news. It is to be hoped that will relieve the blockage. Far more workplace planning needs to be carried out by the State to make sure we have the necessary staff at planning process level throughout the country, be that in local authorities or Departments.

There is also the issue of accountability, which is significant. I always say let us imagine a country where there was a penalty for people who did not fulfil their contract of employment and the transformative effect that would have on delivery of public services and different systems within the State. We do not have that, unfortunately. I think of the RTÉ board, which is topical, the members of which did not do their due diligence or did not make a decision to sign off on Toy Show The Musicaland did not do their job as a board in that regard. They are still in their roles and there is no accountability other than potentially answering questions at a committee. It is important to realise that answering questions is not accountability. We should fix the internal deficiencies of the State in pushing projects through and inject some accountability into processes, where there is actually a cost for people not doing their jobs in delivering these projects. That is also important.

I will also raise the issue of waste. I recently put in a parliamentary question to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, on the procurement made to deal with the current migrant and immigration situation. At the start of 2023, I questioned the Minister on how many buildings the Department had purchased for the purpose of housing migrants. At that stage, 20 buildings had been purchased, one of which was in use. I put in the same question at the start of this year. Thirty-seven buildings had been purchased and one is still in use. If you are a citizen of this country who is struggling with the cost of living and all the difficulties of that, there is a frustration that money is being spent by the Government on capital projects, for worthy reasons, yet the answer to the parliamentary question I got back from the Minister is that the Department is looking for systems to repurpose these buildings. The Government has dozens if not hundreds of empty buildings throughout the country. The HSE has a couple of hundred empty buildings and the OPW has nearly 100 empty buildings. It feels like we are not sweating the assets, especially when those assets cost significant money. The Minister might speak to that.